Microsoft intends to submit file formats for its new Office 12 applications to the European standards body ECMA International. The company hopes this will allay concern about its level of control over document formats. Update by AS: For the curious, here's a sample Office 12 file and a sample XPS file. (Note: Right click > Save As..., we're not configured to serve these files just yet.)

But who decides to which direction this standard is developed? If it's Microsoft then it probably has ready implementation for each "proposed" improvements of the standard and that way it's always one step ahead the competitors.